Archives: Linux

Chris Campbell, a developer from Adobe Flash Player, announced that Linux support for Adobe Flash Player will soon be making a comeback.

“Linux users have access to both NPAPI and PPAPI versions of Flash Player. However, for the last four years, the NPAPI version has been held at 11.2 and regularly updated with only security fixes while the PPAPI version (used in Chrome and Chromium based browsers), is in line with the standard Windows and Mac releases.” Chris stated.

“Today we are updating the beta channel with Linux NPAPI Flash Player by moving it forward and in sync with the modern release branch (currently version 23). We have done this significant change to improve security and provide additional mitigation to the Linux community.”

Although the ghost of flash player is long gone on Linux, seeing as many users internet browsers use HTML5, the Linux community probably have no idea what Adobe flash player is. The world of technology, as always will evolve and there will always be new software out to replace the dinosaur software.

Chris Campbell announced that they have two version currently available for beta, 64-bit and 32-bit.

“Currently we are distributing 32 and 64 bit binaries only, we will package these in proper installers after additional testing and feedback. Users should manually back-up their existing Flash Player plugin file from the appropriate system plug-in folder and copy the new binaries into place to use them. Please note that our initial release does not support Fedora based distributions. For more information, see our release notes.”

After a little over two months of development, the Manjaro team released the ‘Ellada’ edition of Manjaro.

Manjaro developers stated they focused on polishing the user experience on the desktop and window manager, and on updating some components to take advantage of newly available technologies such as switching to a new Vertex-Maia theme.

Lubuntu is a fast, lightweight and energy-saving variant of Ubuntu using the LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) desktop. It is intended to have low-resource system requirements and is designed primarily for netbooks, mobile devices and older PCs.

The second alpha of the Yakkety Yak (to become 16.10) has now been
released!
This milestone features images for Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Kylin.
Pre-releases of the Yakkety Yak are *not* encouraged for anyone needing
a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into
occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for
Ubuntu flavor developers and those who want to help in testing,
reporting and fixing bugs as we work towards getting this release ready.
Alpha 2 includes a number of software updates that are ready for wider
testing. This is still an early set of images, so you should expect some
bugs.
While these Alpha 2 images have been tested and work, except as noted in
the release notes, Ubuntu developers are continuing to improve the
Yakkety Yak. In particular, once newer daily images are available,
system installation bugs identified in the Alpha 2 installer should be
verified against the current daily image before being reported in
Launchpad. Using an obsolete image to re-report bugs that have already
been fixed wastes your time and the time of developers who are busy
trying to make 16.10 the best Ubuntu release yet. Always ensure your
system is up to date before reporting bugs.

Today is the 25th anniversary of Linux, an announcement was posted that read:

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Linux, we’ve released our seventh edition of the Linux Kernel Development Report. It analyzes the work done by over 13,500 developers since the kernel’s early days, as well as more recent trends.

Key findings:

Over 13,500 developers from more than 1,300 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since tracking began 11 years ago.

The rate of Linux development continues to increase, as does the number of developers and companies involved in the process.

The number of unpaid developers continues its slow decline, as Linux kernel development proves an increasingly valuable skill sought by employers, ensuring experienced kernel developers do not stay unpaid for long.

An announcement was released on the update of the Linux 3.16.37 kernel.

“I’m announcing the release of the 3.16.37 kernel. All users of the 3.16 kernel series should upgrade,” says Ben Hutchings. “The updated 3.16.y git tree can be found at: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-3.16.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git.”

Linux kernel 3.16.37 LTS will have huge improvements to the networking stacks, especially for the packet scheduler, but also for the mac80211 wireless framework, B.A.T.M.A.N. Advanced, both the IPv6 and IPv4 protocols, Netfilter, Bridge, SunRPC, and TIPC (Transparent Inter-process Communication). And it also looks like various Ethernet, PHY, TUN, and Wireless drivers got updated too, for Broadcom, Mellanox, IBM, or Intel.

SparkyLinux is a lightweight, fast and simple Linux distribution designed for both old and new computers featuring customized Enlightenment and LXDE desktops. It has been built on the “testing” branch of Debian GNU/Linux.

The SparkyLinux distribution is based on Debian’s Testing branch and is available in several editions. The project’s latest release, SparkyLinux 4.4, is available in five different desktop flavors.

The new version offers updated packages for the kernel and Firefox. The ability to easily install additional desktops, including PekWM, Trinity and Lumina, through the APTus utility has been added.

“New, updated live/install ISO images of SparkyLinux 4.4 ‘Tyche’ are available for download now. As before, SparkyLinux ‘Home’ editions provide full-featured operating system based on Debian ‘Testing’, with desktops of your choice – LXDE, LXQt, KDE, MATE and Xfce. Changes between versions 4.3 and 4.4: full system upgrade as of August 15, 2016; Linux kernel 4.6.4 (4.7.1 is available in Sparky repositories); Firefox 45.3.0 ESR (Firefox 48 is available in repositories); Calamares is available….”

BlackArch Linux is an Arch Linux-based distribution designed for penetration testers and security researchers. It is supplied as a live DVD image that comes with several lightweight window managers, including Fluxbox, Openbox, Awesome and spectrwm. It ships with over a thousand specialist tools for penetration testing and forensic analysis.

Gaurov Soni has announced the release of BlackArch Linux 2016.08.19, an Arch-based live distribution with a large collection of tools designed for penetration testing and security research:

“Today we released new BlackArch Linux ISO image. The new ISO image include over 1,500 tools. Here’s the changeLog: include Linux kernel 4.7.1; updated BlackArch Linux installer; added more than 100 new tools; updated all BlackArch tools; updated all system packages; updated menu entries for window managers (Awesome, Fluxbox, Openbox). The following newest tools have been added: anti-xss – an XSS vulnerability scanner; shelling – an offensive approach to the anatomy of improperly written OS command injection sanitisers; pathzuzu – checks for path substitution vulnerabilities and logs the commands executed by the vulnerable executables; gef – multi-architecture GDB enhanced features for exploiters and reverse engineers….”

SteamOS is a Debian-based Linux distribution designed to run Valve’s Steam and Steam games. It also provides a desktop mode (GNOME) which can run regular Linux applications. In addition to a stable Debian base, SteamOS features various third-party drivers and updated graphics stack, a newer Linux kernel with long-term support, and a custom graphics compositor designed to provide a seamless transition between Steam, its games and the SteamOS system overlay. The base operating system is open-source software, but the Steam client is proprietary.

Maui Linux is a desktop Linux distribution based on KDE neon and featuring KDE’s Plasma desktop.

It was created in August 2016 as a continuation of Netrunner’s Kubuntu-based “Desktop” edition, but it was re-based on KDE neon which is a more cutting-edge project with frequent updates and a semi-rolling release model.

Besides providing a KDE-centric distribution with many popular KDE packages included on the live DVD, the project also focuses on integrating non-KDE software, such as Firefox, Thunderbird or VLC with the underlying infrastructure of the Plasma desktop.

Maui 1 starts with shipping the following software versions (excerpt):

Kubuntu 16.04 has been release an announced by Kubuntu Development Team, this release brings KDE Plasma 5.5.4 desktop environment, Include the KDE Applications 15.12.1 software suite and the latest KDE Framework 5 packages. Also include Non-KDE applications LibreOffice 5.1 and Firefox 45. Kubuntu 16.04 powered by long-term support of linux kernel series 4.4.

Kubuntu 16.04 comes with all your favourite apps from KDE, including Dolphin. Even more applications have been ported to KDE Frameworks 5 but those which aren’t, should fit in seamlessly.Download Kubuntu 16.04 : http://kubuntu.org/getkubuntu